It is in his code to never linger in the same place for too long.
He doesn't have a favourite meal.
Nor a preferred place for coffee.
You're here again, the voice echoes at the back of his head. He has come to terms with his inability to drown it out. Perhaps it's his subconscious missing taking orders from Graver.
"They've just released a new record, ye know."
She tells him, in her voice, honeyed like the night - like sugar, and cinnamon, like cream in this ominous humidity. It is late when he comes in - when the bell chimes, and all that is left on the trays are stale bread. The patrons, once littering the tables like he's used to early in the morning - their company encasing his existence - have retired for the night.
Only he remains. With a cinnamon roll. Coffee, black - no sugar.
And her.
"Do you enjoy their new record?" He asks.
She is over the counter now, wiping down the surface with a disinfectant. Her shoulders roll as she stretches to reach a corner. A wild curl tumbles forward, distracts her vision for a second before she wipes it back behind her ear.
"Hmm," She considers for a moment, paints her gaze on him again, "It'll probably need a couple more listens."
He nods. Eyes dropping down onto the rim of his coffee cup, then to the gold band that encircles his finger.
She has an aloofness about his presence that makes him envious of her. If she only knew the terror he has inflicted by as little as a gaze. But here she was. For every day he is in here - a warm smile, and her honeyed voice - knowing by heart how he likes his coffee, how he accompanies it with a cinnamon bun, and how he stays within himself in his own company, to be distracted only by the same song he has come to regard as theirs.
There is an intimacy there that he hasn't shared with anyone in a long time.
"I don't mean to chase you out," She speaks from behind him, still over the counter.
His gaze averts from the dimly lit streets, over to her when she treads across the concrete. She has a doggy bag with her, hands it to him.
"What's this?" His tone is unintentionally wary.
"Ground coffee."
She explains that Santiago - her help behind the counter that takes off before closing - had grounded an excess this morning. There is something in her tone that suggests this was an excuse.
"And there's a baguette too." His grin is teasing as he looks up from examining the contents of the manilla bag.
"The cinnamon roll's gonna kill you one of these days."
He laughs - with no bitterness, no sarcasm, unlike how he laughs at one of Graver's jokes.
Already dead.
"Pop it in the toaster in the morning, it goes well with blueberry jam."
His daughter loved blueberry jam. He smiles.
I want to start over, I want to be winning
Way out of sync from the beginning
She cuts the music right before it reaches the chorus he has come to memorise. She is somewhere in the back, somewhere out of his periphery. He takes it as cue for his departure.
"Thank you." He calls.
The bell chimes.
The door shuts.
Alejandro doesn't allow her the chance to see him off.
Unlike how Kate had seen him off with trembling fingers short of pulling the trigger. Unlike how Isabel - Carina - had seen him off with eyes glossed over at the loss of hope. Unlike the gentle, sweet kiss of his wife, and embrace of his daughter that had seen him off before he returned to their bodies, defiled.
There are eyes on him, but his feet has already taken him onto the cobbled streets, crossing over to the other side.